In commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 709,550 filed July 28, 1976 by one of us, Hans Kudlich, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,141,23 , there has been disclosed such an applicator comprising an array of spray nozzles with discharge orifices closely spaced from a textile web to be patterned. Each nozzle has a housing with a discharge orifice which can be selectively blocked and unblocked by an electromagnetically actuated valve needle in line with the orifice axis. The selective energization of the electromagnetic needle actuators is carried out, under the control of a programmer, between intermittent advances of the textile web in a direction transverse to the nozzle array.
As further disclosed in that prior patent, each valve needle can be supported by a pair of parallel membranes which are interconnected at their centers by a spacing sleeve surrounding the needle, the rims of the membranes being firmly clamped in position at the inner housing wall. This mode of mounting insures a precise axial orientation of the needle while leaving it free to oscillate in response to the applied electromagnetic field, e.g. at frequencies on the order of 2000 to 3000 Hz.